The term Urbicide means ruin of a city, which includes murder and genocide of citizens and destruction of everything that makes the city prosperous and powerful. The victim city may not be completely wiped off the face of the earth but it can be crippled beyond reclaim. You will not find the term Urbicide in the dictionary.
It was coined in 2004 by the historian and travel writer John Man who has written about the conquests of Genghis Khan and Amir Taimur and also describes what the cities they destroyed look like now. Urbicide is a term that succinctly puts into perspective every evil that is happening in Karachi and helps us to see the complete picture in which all the problematic components of our travail fit together like pieces of a jig-saw puzzle.
For decades Karachiites have suspected that whoever rules from Islamabad does not love Karachi whose citizens refuse to be slavishly obedient to the ruler and look upon them as lord and master. Even if, like Bhutto, they were Karachiites for all intents and purposes. Bhutto as a ruler hated the city because it did not politically support him. Ayub Khan hated it for supporting Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah and his son Gohar unleashed the first political genocide in the city after elections. Zia called it enemy camp. Nawaz Sharif and Benazir unleashed extra-judicial, politically motivated murders. Musharraf, while putting on a show of love of the city, had his prime minister Shaukat Aziz sell national assets like the Steel Mills and push poor fishermen from their free water way by selling off islands.
The murder and mayhem, the iniquitous, anti-Karachi policies of the present regime are part of the same game of Islamabad rulers. If Karachi's problems have reached a peak now, it is not entirely because of President Zardari's casual attitude to whatever happens in the city. He inherited many of the problems but, of course, has contributed his own, too. What is disgusting is his belittling Karachi's problems. As, for instance, when he was told about the power shortage and loadshedding in Karachi, he replied that they had loadshedding in London too. Well they had, for three minutes while a new transmitter was being plugged in. There is no record of continuous and massive electricity problems in London, and Zardari knows this well, having lived a long time in that city.
To date we look at and react to specific incidents, such as the recent killings in Orangi Kati Pahari and Qasba. Such as the stand off between KESC and the union which has victimised the city. Such as the chronic water shortage. Now also gas shortage. Now also the leptokurting rise in inflation that is pushing the wage earning middle-class down the economic scale towards virtual poverty and starvation. They all are part of agenda to cripple Karachi and break the back of its enterprise.
If one tries to analyse individual incidents or specific problems as if they had no connection to the other isues, then one is confused. Nothing makes sense. It has also led to a finger pointing. If there is murder and mayhem in Lyari then we think it is the PPP that is targeted as the area is stronghold of the party. So it must be PPP's opponents who are guilty. If the same happens in Orangi we say it is an attempt to undermine the MQM's political power, and put the blame on other political parties.
To say only pockets of trouble exist in the city while the rest is peaceful is a case of not looking at the city as a organic whole. Water, power and housing are the key issues in Karachi. They are the foundation of political exploitation by all political parties. The mushroom growth of illegal housing is the most exploited. In the present mayhem in the Kati Pahari and Qasba area ambitious members of the MQM and ANP operating in their own interest are using their party clout, albeit without the official blessing of their respective political groups, to create for themselves a little kingdom. They are using their political party as the shoulder on which to fire their personal guns. But ultimately it is the parties that get the bad press and the total blame. There are rotten land mafia operating in all political parties.
Instead of taking serious note of the death of over 60 persons in three days of turf war, the PPP government also exploited the situation to hastily introduce the commissioner system to replace the Local Bodies system of city administration. Their timing was perfect. At the moment the MQM is not only out of the coalition but the turf war has considerably weakened it. The MQM has its back to the wall and appears to be helpless to strongly oppose this unfriendly old bureaucratic form of administration.
From day one the present PPP regime has been bent on replacing the local bodies system in the country. The first statements were made against LB system by the Sindh PPP parliamentarians. Whether the system worked in other parts of the country or Sindh is beside the point. It worked very well in Karachi, and that is the reason for opposing it.
The LB system worked in Karachi because it was operated by Karachiites, which in the minds of the politicians translated into power for Jamat-i-Islami and then the MQM which their rivals did not like.
The city is being surely, deliberately, calculatedly killed for the same reason that Genghis Khan and Amir Taimur destroyed cities, which was to break the economic back of those cities and thus the political power, for without wealth it is not possible for any city or country or their ruler to sustain power. It ought to be noted that the cities those great conquerors destroyed were also power houses of trade and comers such as Merv, Samarkand and Bokhara. Merv is totally wiped out, Samarkand and Bokhara hardly matter in economic terms any more and have become mere villages.
History shows that ambitious conquerors destroyed the economic power of others while they are careful to protect their own. Even today we see it in the assertion of supremacy by the United States. The exception seems to be Pakistan where her own rulers are destroying Karachi. It, therefore, follows that they do not think of Karachi as their city, but of whoever lives in it which today includes all ethnic people who have made it their home and source of their livelihood. Karachi is cosmopolitan. Karachi, her life style, culture and people are aliens.
What is the use of blaming one political party or even two for the mess in Karachi? What is the use of blaming even Taliban hiding out in the city? What is the point in blaming gangsters land, water, transport mafia? Show me one ambitious political group that is innocent of employing evil elements for forwarding their agenda. None. The various mafia, the gangsters the thugs and thieves are all members and workers in various political parties. They are all stakeholders in the Urbicide of Karachi.